Key accused in the Daniel Pearl murder case claims he was a 'scapegoat' in a letter

A LAWYER has produced a handwritten letter in Pakistan's Supreme Court in which the key accused in the Daniel Pearl  murder case claimed that he was a 'scapegoat' and arrested under 'US pressure'.

It also says that the real culprit was a Karachi-based militant named Attaur Rehman.

Lawyer Faisal Siddiqui, who represent the parents of slain US journalist Pearl, produced the letter in the court on Sunday(20).

Pearl, the 38-year-old South Asia bureau chief for The Wall Street

Journal, was abducted and beheaded while he was in Pakistan investigating a story in 2002 on the links between the country's powerful spy agency ISI and al-Qaeda.

British-born al-Qaeda leader Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh and his three aides were convicted and sentenced in the abduction and murder case of Pearl. In April, they were exonerated by the Sindh High Court and an appeal against their acquittal is being heard in the Supreme

Court.

Siddiqui told the court that the letter was submitted to the Sindh High Court on July 19, 2019.

The letter was produced during a hearing of the appeals against the acquittal of the four accused in the Pearl murder case.

A three-judge special bench led by Justice Mushir Alam heard the appeals of the Sindh government and Pearl's parents, Ruth and Judie Pearl, against the high court ruling.

Siddiqui contended that the bench must consider it. However, the apex court will decide on it on the next hearing on January 4, media reports said.

Sheikh further said in his letter that he had been in prison under the death sentence since 2002, charged and convicted for the abduction and murder of Pearl.

However, it was on public record that neither did he abduct Pearl nor did he murder him and it had been acknowledged by the US government and by Pakistan's former president Pervez Musharraf

in his book.

"The pressure on the Pakistan government at the time (in 2002) by the US was so intense that Sheikh was used as a 'scapegoat' to lessen that pressure. Therefore, evidence was fabricated against me to convict me of the abduction and murder of Daniel Pearl,” Sheikh claimed in the letter.

“Later, when the person (Rehman alias Naeem Bukhari) who actually abducted Daniel was arrested, he was not charged with the case because to do so would have exposed the lies and perjured evidence that the Musharraf government used to convict me."

The letter claimed that Rehman was not produced in court but was kept in secret illegal custody of the Rangers for five years, then in Sukkur jail for two years and charged only with a fabricated case of possession of drugs.

After Rehman's release, he is alleged to have organised some of the most devastating attacks Karachi has ever seen, including blowing up of the Rangers Headquarters in Nazimabad, where he was previously secretly held, Sheikh claimed.

The letter also claimed that if he was executed then the evidence, which would prove the truth about Pearl's case, would be lost forever.

Two days after the Sindh High Court overturned Sheikh's conviction in April, the Sindh  government invoked the maintenance of public order to keep the four convicts in jail.

Though exonerated by the court, the Sindh government has refused to set Sheikh free citing that he could pose a threat to public order.